


Running Out of You

by KoofieSins (orphan_account)



Series: Wrekt by Rick [3]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Biting, Blood, Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other, Suicidal Thoughts, Toxic Relationships, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:38:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/KoofieSins
Summary: Rick Sanchez was about as enigmatic as he was simplistic in his needs from you. Sex, words of praise during, and lack of any kind of emotional attachment. He was, in his own words, too old for that shit. And it was too boring for him to keep up with anyone else's emotional well being than his own.Reader and Rick are not good for each other.





	Running Out of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ringsandcoins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringsandcoins/gifts).



> So sixxxteentons gave me an idea for a fic and I accidentally 4000+ words about it???? So this is for her, I guess??? And for all of you? Rick might be sorta OOC here but I just let my emotions dig its claws in and mop the floor with me. 8')

 

 

 _Going off_  
_Going bad_  
_Happy thoughts have been driving me mad_  
_Shut the door and let me stay_  
_Shut the nightmares away_  
_I’ m running out of you_  
_I’ m running back to you_  
_Again_  
_-Running Out of You_ , Keep Shelly In Athens

 

_\- - - - - -_

 

He wasn't any good for you.

You knew it. Your friends knew it. The few family members you were still on speaking terms with knew it. Even _he_ knew it. And everyone told you, frequently, that this wasn't healthy.

You were in a constant state of being as tightly wound as a spring, or feeling so desolate you could barely function for days at a time. You didn't eat. You could barely sleep. And when you did it was rife with nightmares, you woke up with your sheets soaked with sweat.

You mourned the loss of the early days, those few good hours spent with him when it was just...simple. Or as simple as it could get with Rick Sanchez. But somewhere along the line you'd begun to feel different when he wasn't around, like there was something missing, something just out of reach that didn't need to be.

It scared you.

But it scared him even more. You knew that now, after....everything.

He wasn't one to linger after he finished, chasing his orgasmic high after he brought yours out of you. And that had been fine, up until things got complicated. One afternoon as you lie in your bed, sheets tangled around one leg and feeling his cum still trickling out of you, your whole body felt like it had been dunked into ice cold water. He'd long since left, stepped out through a portal with a slurred 'Thanks, babe,' and you missed him. For the first time after two dozen or so visits like this, you _missed_ him.

You didn't even know what you'd missed. Just  _him_.

That was the start of the end.

Rick Sanchez was about as enigmatic as he was simplistic in his needs from you. Sex, words of praise during, and lack of any kind of emotional attachment. He was, in his own words, too old for that shit. And it was too boring for him to keep up with anyone else's emotional well being than his own.

So it was strange when he lingered, once or twice. Held you against his chest, caging you in with his arms and holding on so tight those bruises lasted _far_ longer than the others he'd inflicted. His breathing still ragged against your neck, and you could feel his heart beating so hard it seemed like his ribs could barely hold it from breaking out. Sometimes it was just a brushing of his fingers on your face, his eyes studying you and looking through you at the same time. In those moments you felt the most alive, like you were with another human being to him, and when he would brush his lips softly, so gentle it fucking _hurt_ across yours it felt so _real_.

But he couldn't do 'real.' He couldn't do 'human.' He couldn't cling, couldn't let you cling, couldn't tolerate the burgeoning _need_ for....something. And while you did, while you tried to hold yourself back and tell yourself to _stop, stop, he doesn't care he can't care just stop_ , you could feel him slipping out of your fingers.

When you weren't trying to relive those brief moments when everything felt right, even if you two didn't fit like magical fucking puzzle pieces, you were reliving the moments that hurt. The callous words, the bruises, the times when all you were to him was a hole to get off in. The worried glances, the angry friends, getting fired _twice_ because eventually he decided he didn't give a damn about your schedule.

But you made it work. _You_ did. Because if you didn't, he'd stop coming. And when you got that job that let you make your own schedule, you realized how much you'd done for him, and that he was that thing that was just out of reach that you always stretched for. He was the frostbite in the middle of summer, the lump growing and choking your heart out.

He didn't care. He didn't show that he cared, and you tried to ignore it. When that didn't work, you just....let yourself fall into it. And you fell deeper, and deeper, until the colors of the world were all blurred together in a gray mess and the only hue you could see was white, blue, and washed out skin.

That last time got ugly. He lacked the finesse he usually had; and you were desperate, needy in the worst way. He complained that you were holding on too tight, you swallowed the protests when he drove too fast and too hard when he'd barely spent a second trying to prepare you. There was blood on your sheets from where he'd bitten into the meat of your shoulder, and god it hurt it hurt _it hurt_ , but it was nothing compared to the yawning, gaping black hole in your chest.

When he pulled out, he barely made any noise. Just came all over your back with your face in the pillows, then sat on the edge of your bed. Eventually your fingers uncurled from the sheets so you could grope around for the rag you'd had waiting for this, but you could barely lift your arm you were shaking so hard.

“Uh, sorry,” he grunted, and dropped the rag next to your head. The floorboards creaked as he stood, the hiss of his zipper signaling he was about to leave. “See-urrgh-see you when I see you.”

“I can't.” Two words. That was all it took. It didn't make the world go still; you could hear the rasp of cloth on your back as you tried to clean up the mess. Stared at the wall, shame washing over you as you reached up to press the clean side against the open wounds on your shoulder. But those two words made him stop. When you were able to look at him, he'd already pulled the portal gun out of his jacket, which he hadn't even bothered to take off.

That, for whatever reason, was enough to punch through the walls you'd built around the tangled and snarling ball of your emotions. Tears flowed down your face, freely, and you weren't sure why you weren't trying to hide it but you began to sob.

“I _can't_ ,” you said again, the words broken, about as broken as you were under his impassive stare.

“You-you think I give a shit?” You thought you'd be numb to it, but the words cut you deep, reaching into the black hole that swallowed up everything that made you a functioning adult and _destroying_ what was left. Everything hurt, from the inside out, and you felt your barely contained resolve snap like a thread. But Rick wasn't done yet. “You think I give _two shits_ about whatever the fuck it is you can or can't do?! I-I-I'm not your fucking keeper, I'm not your boyfriend you needy little shit. Take care of this mess yourself, we're fucking done here.”

“...don't come back.”

He froze again. You felt terror welling up in your throat at your own words; had you really said them? When he faced you, you barely caught the stricken look on his face, and you knew you had. You really had. But the emptiness in your stomach from the past two days of barely eating, the fatigue that made it nearly impossible to lift your head for long enough to meet his eyes as he steeled his gaze into a scowl pushed you, steeled your nerves for long enough to continue.

“Don't you fucking come back here, Rick. I'm done. I can't keep doing this.” You pushed yourself on shaking arms until you were sitting up, and then stood in front of him. If you were going to kick him out of your life, you weren't going to do it lying in a puddle of his cum and your blood. “Get the hell out. I don't want to see your face ever again. I fucking _mean_ it.”

The silence that stretched between you was unbearable. You couldn't hear anything above the ringing in your ears, but you could see his chest expanding erratically, see the tic in his jaw and the flare of his nostrils.

“I don't fucking need this.” That was it.

Just like that, he was gone.

 

 

 

There were days when you couldn't function. All you could do was cry. And scream. And tear into things. Clothes, pillows, photographs. _Your own skin_. You needed to destroy something, after a piece of you you hadn't realized had been so vital to you had been so carelessly destroyed by him.

You wanted it all to stop. You wanted everything to stop. Because it all just reminded you of him. Everything. Everything you looked at, tasted, touched, smelled, heard....it all went back to _him_. The hole in your chest became raw and ached with every breath you took. The air hurt when you were aware of it on your skin, in those rare moments you weren't trying to drink yourself into blacking out.

It wasn't until you saw the raw, green and purple bruising around the wound on your shoulder that you saw yourself in the mirror. You couldn't tell the last time you'd showered. The bags under your eyes reminded you of holes, and your eyes looked flat and hollow. Empty. You were empty. You were like some dingy, abandoned bathtub after he'd yanked the plug out of the drain.

….but you could fill yourself back up again.

Rebuilding your life hadn't been easy. The first two months you'd spent in an out of therapist's offices, living off of a cocktail of antidepressants and the food you were remembering to eat again. The few friends you still had in your life helped you during the hard nights, took you out for drinks or a movie on good ones. Your family went through the 'I told you so' song and dance, but you were secretly happy to have their support, too.

Dating wasn't going to happen anytime soon. You needed to love yourself before you could even think about it. And it was still hard some mornings to get out of bed. Your life wasn't the same after you pushed Rick out of it. It hadn't been the same since he'd walked in.

Your therapist suggested you start keeping a journal. And you did. For once in your life you managed to actually write, daily, about your feelings. You wrote pages, short novels about....everything. Not just about Rick, but mostly him. Some of those entries of the first journal was particularly hard to write, and the pages were still slightly wrinkled with tears months after when you went back to read it.

It had been six months without Rick showing up intermittently when the first journal went missing. You didn't notice it until the lease on your apartment went up, and while packing things away, you'd been unable to find it. Your therapist assured you it was probably for the best; a symbolic gesture of the universe, whatever that meant. You shrugged it off and moved to a better side of town, the job you'd taken to make your own schedule having been a blessing in disguise and enabling you to afford a better place.

Then another journal went missing. Next a packet of pictures from the start of the year when you'd first met Rick, the one you had told your therapist you'd burned. In the back of your mind you suspected, but you also tried to block out the possibility, because the idea that Rick was still trying to make himself known in your life was about as terrible as it was thrilling. No matter what you told the therapist, how many times you assured your friends and family and even yourself that you wouldn't need him ever again, some small part of you hoped....and hoped....

Hope won out. But not in the way you wanted, or needed.

You hadn't known him to be much of a letter writer. But you found it taped to your door when you got home one evening, frowning and wondering if management had sent a complaint. (About what, you weren't sure; you were a quiet tenant.) It only took that first sentence to realize who it was from, band your hands were shaking as you read it, once, twice, five times and again and again until your vision blurred and all you saw were the words everywhere you looked.

 

 ~~I'm sorry.~~ I know you noticed your shit was missing. I can't really say I'm sorry, I just...can't. ~~I wish I could~~  
_We know the score. I sure as fuck do now, after reading those diaries of yours. I'm no good for you. I know I am. I knew it from the beginning that you were too good for me, but I_ ~~needed~~ wanted, I wanted someone so much better than me  
_I can't believe I didn't notice. I did Didn't realize how close I came to fucking killing you. I've almost killed my fucking family more times than I can count, I almost killed you and you never even came with me on one of my stupid jobs_ ~~But I wanted to bring you I wanted to show you so much why didn't I just do it~~  
_You're just too good for me babe. And I wish I could take it back. Would it make you feel better knowing I've barely eaten since? Would you be happy knowing even my own daughter can't look me in the eye because she knows I'm dying for what I did to you and I fucking deserve it god I just want to die_  
_I can't stop looking at these pictures of you and me_ ~~of you of you just you~~ I've lost count how many times I've read those stupid diaries, they're not stupid and you're not stupid god you never were I can't believe I made you feel like this why didn't you tell me????  
_Do us both a favor and forget about me just forget so I can rot in this fucking garage  
_ _I'm sorry sweetheart_

 

Your hands are shaking by the time you realized you were driving. You'd only been there twice, once to fuck him and again to pick up a thong you'd left (that he'd probably kept after ripping it off of you, the dirty old bastard). But you remembered the way, and that loud keening was back in your ears again by the time your car came to a screeching halt in front of their mailbox.

The garage door was closed. The letter was still crushed in your fist. A sharp edge on the latch to the garage door cut into your palm, but you ignored it, pushing it up and open. Light flooded in from the streetlight. The stale chemical smell, motor oil and ozone flood your senses, and everything is just like it was last time, and it feels like yesterday despite being almost a year ago.

He's not there.

The house was silent, and you knew you were risking your life and the comfort of his family, but you didn't care. Any part of you that might have cared was left at the front door of your apartment, along with all the progress you'd made. Maybe not all of it. But enough to make you come running to him, to burst in through the back door and--

He's there. Slumped over the kitchen table with a myriad of half empty bottles, cans, the debris of someone trying to drink themselves into oblivion.

“Rick?!”

His fingers twitched on his flask. The groan he let out sounded like the groans of a dying man, or maybe that was just the panic clawing at the inside of your skull. Your hands were shaking as you reached out, suddenly standing next to him, and his body was cold through his clothes when you touched his shoulder.

Like touching a live wire, you both jumped, and with a clatter of bottles and cans Rick was up and on his feet. His body surged towards yours, his tackling you to the ground, your skull bouncing off the floor painfully. When your vision cleared he'd pinned your hands to the ground, his grip bruising. And he looks....dead.

More than he had, anyway.

“....why.” It wasn't a question, but it demanded an answer. Before you could, though, he brought his haggard face down to yours; so you could see the deep circles under his eyes up close, so you could feel the chill of his nose against yours, and smell so much alcohol on his breath you were shocked you didn't get drunk breathing it in. “ _Why. Are. You. Here_?!”

“Why'd you send me that letter?!” Your response was hissed, and you struggleed to move your legs out from under his. It was alarmingly easy. The only strength he seemed to have was focused on keeping your hands down, but before he could shift his focus to your knee, you slammed it into his side with as much force as you could muster. With a winded grunt he released you, curling into the fetal position on the floor as you hopped to your feet. “God fucking DAMMIT, Rick! It has been _months_. I was getting better. My god could you just....you couldn't let me have THAT?! Am I not allowed to get over this unless its on your fucking terms?! Or am I just supposed to wither away after you treat me like garbage and my dumb ass finally wizened up enough to quit you?!”

“You're – hhhngh – n-not....not stupid.” He twitched on the floor, and promptly threw up on the tiles next to your shoes. You stepped out of his range, reaching up and gripping your own hair as every emotion you'd been holding back on the way there let loose and grappled for control over you. You ended up pacing in front of the table he'd been passed out on, hands still gripping your hair as you tried to gain some control over yourself again. “Not....y-you-you're not stupid, ugh god dammit you got me in my fucking ribs...but why the hell did you come...why are you _here_?!”

“Jesus, fuck, I don't fucking know!” And you didn't. You really, really didn't. Not when you'd been driving here, not when you'd been reading that letter, not when you looked down at him. He'd managed to push himself so he was sitting up, bile and booze trickling down his chin, looking more gaunt and skeletal than he ever had. He looked...lost, and you didn't know why, but you started fucking crying again. “Rick why did you do this? Why?” You held out the letter towards him, jabbing at it furiously. “I can't do this. This? This shit? I can't do it. The fucking was fine, I was cool with that, but you, FUCK, you stopped treating me like I was a person or like you didn't care if I lived or died. Like I'm a dime a fucking dozen but I'm _not_ , and you _know_ that.”

You dropped down to your knees, letter still in hand, and grabbed the front of his lab coat to shake him. “After writing this, sneaking into my apartment and taking my shit _months_ after I wanted you gone, you can't.... Or maybe you fucking do. Maybe you do, I don't know. Hey, let's test that, yeah? Since this is all just one big fucking experiment to you. You look me in the goddamn eye, Rick Sanchez, and you fucking tell me you don't give a shit again. Like you mean it. I'd rather hear you don't care than to have you suddenly care again. So fucking....j-just--”

You cut yourself off when your words stuttered into a dry, broken sob. Your head fell forward, hanging between your shoulders as the tears came flowing again. You watched as the fell on his pant leg, your hands sliding down his chest so your arms hung limp at your sides.

Cold hands curled around your arms, pulling you against him. And he just....held you. You went stiff against him for all of a few seconds before your body went slack, your cheek pressed against his collarbone. He'd lost weight. It felt like nothing but a skeleton wrapped in skin holding on to you, and that made you cry even harder. He was so cold, so thin and so fragile, his grip weak as his hands ran aimlessly through your hair.

“Why are you doing this to me?” You pulled your head up so you could look him in the eye, and something in your chest twisted painfully at the raw, _human_ expression he didn't bother to hide.

“If I could tell you, I would.” His voice was rough, two pieces of sandpaper scraping together. God, it felt like _home_ , hearing it again. “I'm not...you-you know I can't be who you need. But I fucking _hate_ this.” He pulled you against him again, holding onto you so tightly you were afraid his fingers might snap. “I'm too fucking old to feel like I have anything to lose. I guess -hhhrrgh- I guess I like hurting and I needed someone who could – who would stroke my ego.” He was silent for a while, and so were you. It was just quiet, and you wondered if that's what he needed. Silence. If, as smart as he was, being with someone to take his mind off the unfathomable amount of thoughts racing in his head helped slow things for a moment. Or maybe the silence was killing, damning, you didn't know. “W-wish you hadn't found that letter.”

“You kind of left it on my front door, buddy,” you snorted, absently rubbing at his chest. You could feel his ribs under his skin, and you shut your eyes tight, your fingers curling into his shirt. “Rick, this is – this is bad. I was getting better.” You let out a shaking breath. “But you can't...I can't let you just die.”

“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, bu – URRGH – but we're all gonna die someday.”

“Not like _this_.” You pulled away from him again, your jaw set in a hard, belligerent line as you leveled him with a glare. “I can't go back to the way things were.” _I can't love you again._ You swallowed those words back, words you knew hung between the two of you that he heard just as loudly as if you'd screamed them in his face. “I don't know if I could do what we used to. But Rick, I can't let you die like this. Or live like this. I can't let you wallow in self pity.”

“I don't _need_ rescuing.” His voice was bitter, guarded, and your scowl deepened. “And I – and I don't want it, either. You can fuck off with that. Besides, y-y-you and I both know I'm the one who fucked this up.” As he spoke his words got louder, not shouting but just short of it, and his fingers still clinging to your arms were trembling. His eyes got too bright, and your heart kicked with panic when you realized he was on the verge of crying. “I don't need anyone because I don't fucking deserve anyone, get it through your thick fucking skull. It's like you said: I'm like _cancer_.”

“I was fucking _sick_ you son of a bitch,” you hissed, pushing his hands off of you and surging to your feet again. “I've been sick since before I met you. Don't give yourself all the credit for that, I _know_ where my own mental fuck ups come from. You weren't the rhyme or reason for every goddamn thing in my life then, and you sure as shit aren't now.”

“Th-then why the hell are you back?!” He struggled to his feet, and you let him, even though your fingers itched to help him. You were certain he would have knocked your hands away. “If I'm n – nrrgh – everything to you, if y-you don't worship me now like you did then, what good are you to me?!”

“Something is better than _nothing_ , Rick.” The sincerity in your words shut him up, and he looked at you like you'd dunked cold water on him. “I know that better than anyone by now, I think.” You reached out, your hand curling around one of his, and he jumped like a spooked animal. But he didn't pull away. You brought his hand up to your lips, and god his skin was so cold and felt so fragile under your fingers you started crying _again_ , but you held on. “It can't be like before.”

“...no.”

And it isn't. It never is. It still hurts, you still have scars and so does he. It doesn't last forever, and you never wanted it to. Neither does he. But it's something.

That's better than nothing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you or anyone you know are having suicidal thoughts, suffers with depression, or are in an abusive relationship, please use these numbers. Take care of yourselves, I love all of you. <3  
> http://deadinparadice.tumblr.com/post/119568503070/dont-ever-hesitate-reblog-this-tumblr-rule


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